


The Curse

by Reishiin



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2015-10-24
Packaged: 2018-04-27 23:32:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5069128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reishiin/pseuds/Reishiin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The silver and gold armour and the amethyst-set circlet of the Forsaken Kingdom are pristine, as they should be, but Kazuma Tsukumo had opened the crypt expecting to find the sawdust-remains of a dried-out husk, not this body of a boy who looks for all the world like he’s only sleeping.</p><p>(An archaeologist's son falls in love with the Mad Prince)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Curse

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the song [The Curse](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXBI2_zH9Js) by Josh Ritter

 

 

The Mad Prince’s corpse is unexpectedly well preserved, Tsukumo Kazuma finds. The silver and gold armour and the amethyst-set circlet of the Forsaken Kingdom are pristine, as they should be, but he had opened the crypt expecting to find the sawdust-remains of a dried-out husk, not this body of a boy who looks for all the world like he’s only sleeping. If he only had the resources to do a chemical test, he thinks he might have found preservatives laced all through the boy’s flesh that would have stopped decay in its tracks—he’s heard tell of that sort of thing.

He’d pushed back the sheets of the intact death-shroud to reveal a surprisingly youthful face; the Mad Prince can’t have been more than fourteen or fifteen when he was buried. Too innocent for someone who’d killed so many, Kazuma thinks, and the dissonance unsettles him. But then the moment passes and he hollers something to the rest of the archaeological team, heads back outside to retrieve the tools required for proper excavation of the tomb; leaves his son Yuuma, fascinated by the crystals in the Prince’s casket and the brilliance of the Prince’s hair, to linger.

Yuuma reaches down to trace the circlet that crowns the Prince, touches the violet crystal that rests upon his forehead. It glimmers just so as it catches the light, and beneath the Prince’s aeons-old chest plate, a heart begins to beat.

 

 

* * *

 

 Air-freighting the artefacts they’d found would have been prohibitively expensive, so Kazuma’s expedition had made the round trip by boat, lengthened even further by side trips when the freighter makes week-long detours to pick up or drop off other cargo. Kazuma and his associates use the time to sort and catalogue the haul of items they’d brought back from the Mad Prince’s burial place. Sometimes Yuuma helps them, fetches them their tools or takes dictation, but more often he likes to go down to the cargo hold to read his father’s collection of history books just like he’d done on the way to the site.

They keep the corpse of the Mad Prince in the cargo hold, too, and Yuuma passes him many times on his way in and out. The Prince can’t be any older than Yuuma’s own age—and his face looks so familiar, as if they might once have been friends, or like he’s someone Yuuma met in a long-ago dream. Yuuma decides that, having been away from the world for so long, the Prince would probably want to know how people today remembered him. So Yuuma goes down to the cargo hold to visit him, and read aloud stories of that long-ago time from the book of myths.

The stories of the Forsaken Kingdom are all the same; the rulers of that place never wanted anything but total war and total destruction, loved nothing so much as the scent of blood and worshiped no god but their own strength. The last of them, whose name had been erased and who was known only as the Mad Prince—had massacred everyone in the kingdom of the ruler who had tried to challenge him—and then had ordered everyone in his own kingdom put to death, too, and then had killed himself…

But the stories also said that the Forsaken Kings’ madness was not blood but a curse, and that the Prince before he was forced to the throne had brokered numerous treaties with former enemies, had been heralded as the one who would finally break the cycles of war. And the expression the prince wears now in death—it’s smoothed over and serene, like he finally is at peace.

Yuuma reaches out again, fingers slipping past the cold metal of the circlet and into the soft hair. “If I had had the chance to meet you, I would have wanted to ask—your real name—”

 

 

“Yuu-ma—?”

The chest beneath the armourplate is most definitely rising and falling with breath, and the face that smiles is very much alive. The boy reaches up to touch Yuuma’s face, warm fingers tracing the curve of Yuuma’s cheek, and the colour of the amethyst set in his circlet is also the colour of his eyes.

“—Vector,” the Prince says, turning the words over like he’s not sure how to say them. “That was—is—”

_—my name._

  

 

 

Vector learns quickly: first to speak, and then to read. It helps that the structure and symbols of Yuuma’s language turn out to have been fairly similar to Vector’s own. At first, Vector tires easily, and he has to lean on Yuuma after merely minutes of standing, but he gets stronger quickly, too.

It has to be uncomfortable to sleep on a bed of stone lined sparsely with sawdust, but Vector just says “Don’t mind it, Yuuma. It’s been centuries like this—a few days more is nothing.”

Yuuma insists on raiding the ship’s linen stores anyway.

 

 

“What is it, Vector?”

He’s looking out of the porthole at something across the sea, his expression wistful. “Nothing. Just—when the sea is like this—I remembered someone, a long time ago, who sacrificed herself to the ocean god for the power to fight her enemies.”

He doesn’t say a name, and even if he had it wouldn’t be anything Yuuma recognises. But like this—it’s really difficult to believe that someone like that could ever have been as cruel as the stories say. “Is it true, Vector? That you’re cursed?”

Vector steps away from the porthole, and turns to face Yuuma fully then. “Not any more,” he says with a smile, simple and honest, and takes Yuuma’s hand between both of his own.

 

 

* * *

 

 They put Vector in a glass case in the Heartland Museum along with the expedition’s other finds. Kazuma publishes a book detailing his findings from the crypts of the Forsaken Kingdom, which draws attention and visitors from all over the country. Vector plays dead while the museum is open, and finds himself the subject of many curious and wondering eyes. But none are Tsukumo Yuuma.

It’s several days before Yuuma himself slips into the museum after dark, hours past closing time, and pushes open the lid of Vector’s glass case. Vector opens his eyes, and then smiles and pulls himself upright. “You’re here, Yuuma.”

“I wanted to see you again.”

“I hoped you would.” Vector smiles, and reaches up to kiss him.

The museum is a storage space for all the historical artefacts that the researchers at Heartland University have built up over time. As they walk through the empty and high-ceilinged halls together, footsteps echoing against the lacquered flooring, Vector points out the exhibits he knows, and tells Yuuma their stories.

“Abyss—that was the god of the sea, Marin, the priestess, and her brother Nasch…” A shadow crosses his face then, but when Yuuma asks what’s wrong, he just smiles and waves it away. “I used to know them,” he says, but doesn’t elaborate, and Yuuma doesn’t press it.

Vector still tires easily, so they find a bench in the museum’s waiting area. The night is clear, visible through the museum’s window, and Vector describes the clusters of stars in the sky that are the souls of long-ago kings. “It’s really true, then, all of it?” Yuuma asks, as he stretches out one hand to trace the constellations. “The kings who controlled spirits? The wars, all of it? ” Then, more quietly, “Your curse...?”

“It was real,” Vector murmurs, looking up at the museum’s ceiling high above like he’s searching for something. “But it’s over. Those spirits—they’re just cards now.”

“Just cards now,” Yuuma echoes. He stretches contentedly, curls up on the bench and lays his head in Vector’s lap. “I’m tired.”

“It’s late,” Vector agrees. He looks out the museum’s windows again, past the stars to where the moon is just beginning to fall below Heartland City’s skyline. He runs his fingers through Yuuma’s hair and lets his hand settle at the nape of the boy’s neck, and doesn’t move for the rest of the night.

 

 

* * *

 

 It goes on like this for a month, Vector pretending to be dead while the museum is open and Yuuma sneaking into the museum once or twice a week after hours. Until one day at mid-morning the Mad Prince pushes open the lid of his glass container and goes walking in broad daylight down the street to Heartland Academy, ignoring the chaos at the museum that erupts in his wake.

Vector searches Heartland Academy methodically until he finds the right room and throws open the door. “I’m looking for Tsukumo Yuuma,” he announces.

There’s movement at the corner of the classroom. Yuuma stirs slightly from where he’d been dozing on his desk, rubs at his eyes and pulls away the notebook paper stuck to the side of his face. “Wha…?”

They’re on every news station by that evening.

 

 

 

“Why did you—”

“I wanted to see you,” Vector replies.

Yuuma lends Vector his spare Heartland Academy uniform, which is far less conspicuous than the silver and gold armour, although Vector’s still instantly recognisable by the brilliant shade of his hair and the amethyst-inset circlet that rests against his forehead. The next opportunity they get, they’ll be going straight to the nearest store and getting Vector a new set of proper clothes.

Akari’s newspaper company offers Vector a notable amount of money for an informational interview, and by the end of the evening Vector has agreed somewhat bemusedly to two public appearances and received invitations to four more. This will be Vector’s life from now on, Yuuma realises—put on display for the world to see as a living instance of a miracle or a carnival freak show.

Vector looks sombre when Yuuma says that. “I can’t say that’s what I want, but it looks like I will have to,” he replies. Then, “Yuuma—will you go with me? I don’t know anything about this world, or what I need to do to live in it, or who I can trust.”

Kazuma and Akari don’t like the idea of Yuuma taking that much time away from school and home. But Vector is persuasive, and promises to take only the best care of him. To be able to go out and see the world like this is something that most children Yuuma’s age could only ever dream of. Besides, Yuuma would always be free to leave and go home any time he liked.

 

 

* * *

 

 Vector learns quickly to manage a life like this, far more quickly than Yuuma ever could; transactions, applications, scheduling, transportation, and the logistics involved in getting them both where they needed to go. It goes by faster than Yuuma can keep track of, and more than once he’d suggested that they ask for some kind of help but Vector had only shaken his head and said, “I trust you, Yuuma.”

Beneath the bright lights of the conference room and the weight of reporters’ viewfinders and eyes, Yuuma shifts uncertainly in his seat. He’s not sure what he should be doing, here in the peripheral vision of every person in the room whose attention is elsewhere. Vector on the other hand seems completely in his element, charms the crowd with ease. That made sense—a prince would have needed to be comfortable with attention and used to speaking in front of people.

“—really, it’s all thanks to Tsukumo Yuuma,” Vector says into the tape recorder someone’s holding out to him. He turns to face Yuuma then, and his smile is as bright as jewels or his eyes.

 

 

* * *

 

 The fatigue settles slowly, like a persistent cold that doesn’t leave. Vector’s the one who has been dead for thousands of years but it’s Yuuma who flags first, spaces out in the middle of conversations, falls asleep in the taxicab on the way to the airport or forgets where they have to go next. Vector looks at him, suggests gently that Yuuma rest, apologises in that way he does for having been such a burden. It’s not true, not really; even now, Yuuma’s happy enough to stay by Vector’s side and provide whatever support he required. But especially recently, the feeling doesn’t leave that he’s just slowing Vector down.

Before that summer, before Kazuma’s trip to the Forsaken Kingdom and before Vector. Yuuma’s just a boy who went to school and played card games with his friends and then went home and helped his father sort through his collection of archaeological things. Here, several borders away from home, in a place where he doesn’t speak the language, sleeping next to someone in a bed not his own—Yuuma dreams, not about Kotori or skipping class to duel Tenjou Kaito or finally completing his collection of Numbers cards, but the clank of steel and the sound of screaming, and an arena of stone where monsters sleep, and an edgeless ocean whose waves crash and break on a lonely desert shore...

He comes back to Vector’s nose inches from his own, Vector’s hand on his shoulder shaking him gently and he’s saying, “Yuuma, Yuuma, are you okay?”

“Oh, sorry, I spaced again. —Don’t worry about it.”

A look of concern crosses Vector’s face and for a moment he looks like he wants to ask something, but then he shakes his head like he’s decided to let it go.

They’d gotten here yesterday in the early hours of the morning, and Yuuma had slept the day away while Vector went to speak with someone in the Department of something at the University of whatever. Yuuma had insisted on making the evening press conference, and as he had reached behind him to pull the door shut Vector had turned to him with a concerned expression and said, “Are you sure you still want to do this?”

“I’ll be fine,” Yuuma had replied.

Which is how he finds himself here, where there’s too much noise and too much light, too many people pressing in to get a glimpse or a soundbite or a photograph of them both and the ushers that keep urging them to keep moving. Vector’s hand slips through his own, and Yuuma doesn’t even notice that he’s fallen behind until Vector whirls around in alarm and says “Yuuma—?”

“Right here,” Yuuma replies, and quickens his footsteps to catch up, and tries to smile.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 “Yuuma, are you all right?”

“Yeah. Just—still jetlagged, I think. You should go on ahead.”

_Still—?_

“—All right, then,” Vector says, and leans down to brush a kiss over Yuuma’s forehead. “I won’t be long. Do you need me to bring back anything for you?”

“No, that’s all right. I’ll be fine, Vector.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Until the day Yuuma doesn’t wake up at all.

The keycard click, the handle turned, the open door. Vector crosses the room to where Yuuma’s lying curled up on his side, in the same position Vector had left him in. Vector  reaches up, brushes a stray lock of hair out of the boy’s closed eyes; lays one hand gently on Yuuma’s chest and discovers that the boy’s heart has simply stopped beating.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Vector takes Yuuma back to that place, to the crypt buried beneath the Forsaken Kingdom where he himself once had lain. He lowers Yuuma’s lifeless body into the casket, brushes one last kiss over the boy’s forehead; tugs the amethyst-inset circlet free from his own head and reaches down to lay it just so over the boy’s hair.

He really looks for all the world like he’s only sleeping.

“Thank you, Yuuma,” he whispers with a smile, and the tears in his eyes shine like jewels in light.

 

 

 

 

 

 

_That day, Yuuma had looked up from his book of mythological stories and asked, “Vector—if it’s true, if you really wanted the Forsaken Kingdom to die with you then why did you leave it all for us to find? The arena, the spirit-stones...”_

_“People enjoy a mystery,” Vector had replied. “Think of it this way—it’s like an invitation.”_

_“—Is it true, Vector? That you’re cursed?”_

_Outside the window, the waves of the sea rock and weave. “Not any more,” Vector had said with a smile, and leaned in to kiss him, and hoped that Yuuma would forget he ever asked at all._

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
